There is so much information available on the web covering SEO that it is easy to get confused and not know where to start.

However SEO, although it can be time consuming, is a relatively simple process that can be understood by most small business site owners.

There are four main factors that effect your
web pages position in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page):

• Your Choice of Keywords
• Your Web page/ site content and Structure
• The links to and from your web site
• Your Competitors

There are two, and only two, ways of optimizing/optimising your website for the search engines:

• On page Optimization- This involves:
  • Keyword Research – Finding and choosing the best Keywords to target
  • Web Page Optimisation- Optimising the web page copy and Meta Tags for the correct keywords.
  • Site structure – Creating an optimized site Navigation structure.
• Off Page Optimization- Establishing inbound links via various
  methods like  directories submission, article marketing,, blogging.

Which Pages Do You Optimize

Ideally all pages will be optimized, but the main one is the home page and for most  small business websites consisting of a few (<5 pages), then this will be the only one that needs optimising.

For any site, regardless of size, the home page will be the most
important page, and should always be optimized.

What to Optimize

A web page has two main parts- the hidden part which consists of the page meta tags that are used by the web browser and the search engines and the visible part, which is what the visitor actually sees which we call the page content.

Both the Meta Tags and the page content need to be optimized.

Keyword Research

This is the most important part of the optimization process as you need to optimize for a selection of chosen keywords/keyword phrases.

However for most small businesses the actual keywords are usually quite obvious and can be obtained by simple brainstorming and by asking family and friends what search terms they would use to located a business like yours.

Research tools like the Google Keyword tool are used for locating other keywords and for checking that the keywords you think are good are actually what people are using.

Site Structure

For most small business websites this isn’t really an issue as they will only have a few pages (<10).

For larger sites then the site navigation will need to be optimized.

Linking

Linking is crucial to getting your site into the search engines and also for giving your site credibility in the eyes of the search engines.

However for small business sites it isn’t complicated as it usually only involves getting a few links from local/niche directories.

There is no need to pay for a link building service/software that blasts your link to thousands of sites.

Video SEO Basics

For those who prefer video:

Summary

Basic SEO for small business websites if quite straight forward and most small business website owners should be able to do it themselves.

To assist I have put together a short free course that takes you through the process in detail. See The SEO Training Workshop for Small Business Website Owners